PS3 outsells competitors in Australia in first half of 2012

Sony reveals PS3 has achieved number one console sales position in Australia for the first half of the calendar year; publisher says data supported by NPD.

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia (SCEA) today revealed the PlayStation 3 home console has outsold its competitors in the Australian market in the first half of the calendar year.

Citing official NPD Group Australia data, Sony said the PS3 came in at number one in the console sales position in the first half of 2012. The publisher also stated that the PS3 was the only games console in the Australian market to achieve double digit unit sales growth year-on-year over the same period.

In addition, Sony said its PlayStation hardware family--including the PS3, PSP, and the PlayStation Vita--combined accounted made up 43 percent of hardware sales in the Australian market for the first six months of 2012.

Sony also revealed local pricing for the upcoming Wonderbook augmented reality platform, which will launch in Australia in November this year (no firm release date as yet). Wonderbook will launch with two bundles: the first bundle will include the platform and its launch title, Book of Spells, for an RRP of A$49.95; the second bundle will include the platform, Book of Spells game, PlayStation Move motion controller and PlayStation Eye camera and will be available for RRP A$99.95.

Last week, Sony announced a new PS3 model which will launch in Australia on September 27. The new model will come in two versions: a 500GB model, and a 12GB flash memory model. The two models will retail for A$400 and A$300 respectively.

Then again, Sony have been "doomed" persistently for the last 7 years according to every gaming forum ever over the years... yet the more people write them off, the more successful they seem to get (Yeah yeah Vitalol or whatever).

Good for them I say, seeing as they're the last console maker to actually still focus on game production first and foremost anymore.

sigh numbers dont tell the truth, double digit growth sounds good but interpreted could mean "wii sold 10 million in 2011 and 10.5 million in 2012 5% year to year growth, the ps3 however sold 2 million in 2011 and 3 million in 2012 a 50% year to year growth". yes its growth but growth on a lower number. theres alot of factors. 1. wii u launching soon people no longer buying wii's. 2. everyone has a wii and 360 already?

43% hardware sales, how much was profit on those sales? microsoft only has 1 console to nintendo and sonys 3, was pc sales counted? i wish they would give more info when announcing this stuff.

btw i have a gaming pc 360 wii and ps3 so im not being unbiased i just hate seeing articles like this

I'm glad to see the PS3 was the best selling console here in Australia for the first half of the year and I hope this continues to be the case for the future :) Out of curiosity, is there any way we can see the actual figures?

@devildemondruid "im not being unbiased" I think you meant you *ARE* being unbiased. Or, you're not being biased.

Also, it's nearly impossible to count PC sales compared to gaming console sales since you don't know how many of those PCs will have games installed on them - and do you count computers that have primary purposes unrelated to gaming, but still have a game installed? - and it wouldn't account for people who are building a new computer from scratch.

@36Chambers93 Have u ever thought that not everyone can afford to fork out $1000 for a decent PC when they can easily fork out $300 for a PS3 and play as many games as they want without having to have a degree in computer science on how to run and play these fantastic new fangled pc games?

Nothing to do with there being far more choice on the American PS Store and heaps more benefits with American PS Plus membership then, along with a better pricing policy of course?

As for you not liking Europeans, how bizarre because an educated stab in the dark tells me you are most likely to come from European ancestry 'anyway'! So you obviously don't like yourself which is cool but please try being a bit more honest about your personal self hate issues, could you do that for us all?

@Lhomity Oh yeah, let's just burn all the games we own while we're at it. Our PS3's are PAL compatible-only, meaning we can only play games from Europe/UK. Im pretty sure NA are NTSC or something rather like that.

@chasloyal You took my bit about not liking Europeans literal xD! (We don't like Americans either... No, don't take that seriously). But on a very serious note; most Australians don't identify themselves by their (predominantly-)British heritage. Try calling an Irishman a "Brit" in a bar after he's had a pint or two of Guiness, and you may get some idea of how an Australian might respond. Self-hate has nothing to do with it. Australians consider themselves Australians.

Back on-topic:

Have you seen PlayStation Stores in EU, AU and UK? They are a mess and have been for a long time. The PS Plus section is literally broken. SCEE is grossly incompetent, and many games get delayed without explanation, promised then pulled, or just never appear.

23 pages of comments from last week's blog update, when LittleBigPlanet Vita downloads were broken on launch, people complaining about error codes, failed installs, being charged multiple times, and followed by poor communication from SCEE on all fronts. In the same update, Double Dragon Neon was pulled (apparently they uploaded a demo to the store, not the full game), and it took them 2 days to fix it. And all that's just in the last 7 days.

CounterStrike: Global Offensive is still absent from EU, UK and AU stores, despite being available on PSN in NA, as well as all regions on XBL and Steam.

It took them at least 3 months to put Trine 2 up after its release date. Episode's of TellTale's The Walking Dead series have also been mysteriously delayed. The YouTube app, Crunchyroll and several other PS3 and Vita apps are absent.

Last year around September-ish 2011, they launched Arc The Lad under PSOne Classics, but after many people bought it and complained, it was removed from the store because they had uploaded the Japanese version. An English version of the game finally made it to the store earlier this year. Many more have been announced or promised and 2 years+ later, still nothing. Spyro, Tomba, Syphon Filter 2, the list goes on.

PS3 games are not region locked. There is literally 1 that is (Persona 4 Arena). You can import PS3 games from any other region and play them on a PS3 console bought in any region.

You can also play all PSN games, including PSOne Classics, PS2, minis, purchased from any PlayStation Store in any part of the world. PSN voucher cards are specific though, and DLC is usually locked by region.

So... how are Halo, Gears of War, God of War, Uncharted, Resistance, Killzone, Fable... just to mention a few... working on your PC? Coz I cannot make them run on mine, all the technical superiority aside.

It is actually simple. You miss on big chunk of great games, or you accept gaming is not exclusive to any single platform, and enjoy best of all worlds - or as many as you can.

@demonkingx5@Trainz2006_fan It all comes down to taste and lifestyle. Some people prefer PC gaming. Some prefer console gaming. Some enjoy both. Neither are particularly redundant compared to the other.

A pretty solid gaming PC may be miles ahead of what current-gen consoles can do, but that really only matters if on an individual basis, one is asking one's self: "Do I give a shit? Y/N"

Its only when somebody goes around spouting: "herpderp what you use to play games is crap herpderp", and that just ruins it for everybody. (Like 36Chambers93)

Erm I hate to feel the urge to bite at what you just said but as a proud Englishman who fully subscribes to our United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland duty calls. If what you just claimed is the case I'm rather confused as to why in the last referendum on the matter the overwhelming majority of Australians voted to keep Her Majesty as your head of state? This despite years of rebel rabble rousing republicans like the delightful Mr Keating doing their best to encourage Australians to go the way of countries like France and the USA one hastens to add.

Now on to your Irish comment, you are conveniently forgetting there are two sides when it comes to across the water from us. May I suggest you try telling a Protestant Irishman from north of the border that he is not British? I must add you would be best advised to wear protective clothing and a hard hat before you do so.

As for PSN problems I have spent a lot of the last year in Austria due to family illness issues and have only had the XBOX over here, my PS3 has stayed in rainy South West Essex so I have hardly used it at all and thus pretty unaware of any of these issues you've listed. I still have dark memories of the massive hacking related outage last year so I did lose faith in the format from then on.

That all said for some reason Austrian/A1 Telecom have still been unable to pinpoint after neigh on a year the download speeds at my mother's house in Eisenstadt are on a par with dial up from back in a the day so I have given up with online gaming for the time being. And exactly why I have been caning Arkham City of late and can't wait for Assassin's Creed 3 to hit the streets, I have even invested 100 Euros with Ubisoft Germany to secure the Freedom Edition on launch day! Limited editions are not usually something I go for but seeing standard copies of games are so much more expensive in mainland Europe than they are in the UK I thought it was worth blowing an extra 35 Euros to get the steel book copy, Connor figure, George Washington book and best of all 3 separate single player mission DLC codes included, roll on October 31st!

Please note I have opted to say the date rather than naming the stupid irritating 'celebration' it coincides with, something else Uncle Sam has hijacked and commercialised to the max grrrr at least it ain't much of a do in Germanic culture so I won't have it rammed down my throat this year, thank god!